It wasn’t the “what if” game most would indulge in while standing inside Iceland’s Thrihnukagigur volcano.

The sensible would ponder what if it erupts? But sense isn’t always a strong point, so instead, I wondered if Alberta could emulate this barren, lava-strewn island in the bleak North Atlantic if indeed our country commits economic harakiri and successfully shutters the entire energy industry.

The raging debates about curbing carbon emissions, together with the regulatory and environmental game of snakes and ladders that pipeline development has turned into, makes such musings more than idle conjecture.

Joni Mitchell certainly didn’t have the energy industry in mind when she sang about not knowing what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone, but the words ring true nevertheless, given Canada’s current attitude toward the biggest driver of our relatively high standard of living.

Our provincial government is already doing its best Alice in Wonderland impression by projecting the budget will be balanced in eight years time. The finance department may as well have said 4,000 years, which, incidentally, is the last time the Thrihnukagigur volcano erupted.

There’s this blissful assumption that if oil prices went back to $100 a barrel – an unlikely, but not impossible scenario – then everything would be hunky dory in Alberta. That’s a crock. Not long ago, when oil was indeed over that threshold, we were already running multibillion-dollar deficits. So three-figure oil won’t end the desperate borrowing.

Actually, the real driver of the huge provincial surpluses during the latter Klein years wasn’t oil at all. It was natural gas that brought in mega-bucks when it spiked to over $10. The Texas frackers put paid to that and such good times aren’t going to roll again.

As though the pricing framework isn’t tough enough, both federal and provincial governments seem intent on giving potential future investors every reason to stay away. Why would anyone do business in Alberta with carbon taxes and pipeline constipation when they could just as easily set up shop in North Dakota’s Bakken field? And anyone who imagines the U.S. is going to invoke carbon levies under either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump should slap down the mortgage payment on a Flames Stanley Cup championship.

So if the price doesn’t come back, we can’t get more crude to market, and eventually, those Chinese bondholders decide they want a few more points in interest on the ballooning provincial debt, will we then show the backbone and ingenuity of Icelanders?

Here’s a country that went through an energy crisis of its own back in the 1970s when OPEC jacked up prices, leaving Iceland in the lurch. Forty years later, it suffered another economic calamity due to reckless borrowing and banking sleight of hand. Both times, it bounced back, first through the revolutionary use of geothermal energy, which today makes the place a mecca for green energy converts, and then through the remarkable marketing of the place as among the world’s top tourist destinations.

Needs must is an old expression, but it’s one that leads people to rappel down the mouth of a volcano and discover a unique attraction to entice more people to plod miles across a desolate landscape before being lowered into a magna cave.

But here’s a secret. Compared to Alberta’s natural wonders, Iceland is second tier. No matter how much you market lava fields, there’s no way on Earth they compare to the majesty sitting an hour’s drive from Calgary. We just take it for granted, our tourism outfits more a dumping ground for friends of the party in power than dynamic organizations intent on showcasing and exploiting the grandeur of our backyard.

But what if oil doesn’t come back? What if we can’t rely on royalties to keep taxes low and spending high? What if we have to knuckle down and really work at finding ways to keep enjoying a high standard of living?

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